Ep. 78 – “Afghanistan Does Not Exist in a Vacuum” Double Feature with Frank Fannon, Nathan Sales and Corey Mazza

For the past ten days, we have watched the events unfolding in Afghanistan with a mixture of alarm and sadness. Unfortunately, the situation on the ground remains dangerous and unresolved.

For guidance, today's main segment features two former State Department officers whose expertise ranges from counterterrorism and human rights to the geopolitics of the energy transition. We are very lucky to welcome back our friend Frank Fannon, Managing Director of Fannon Global Advisors, Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic International Studies and the Inaugural Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources. Through Frank, we also got to visit with Nathan Sales, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, Former Acting Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights and Former Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism. It was a fascinating discussion with multiple side alleys. The world suddenly feels like a less predictable place again. With their thoughtful perspectives, Frank and Nathan help us to understand the geopolitical ramifications a little better.

The associated human tragedy is no less unsettling. We also include the personal story of Corey Mazza, a Harvard football player, U.S. Marine and former platoon leader in Afghanistan. Earlier this week, from his home in Los Angeles and managing around his current job in a private wealth management business, Corey worked the phones to help achieve the successful evacuation of his former unit's Afghan translator. He describes the ongoing efforts to get our friends and allies out of Afghanistan by August 31st and gave us visibility on how veterans and others are mobilizing here at home and abroad to do anything they can to help.

Mike Bradley and Colin Fenton kick in some good things to get us going. Mike talks about oil and the recent rally and what's been helping turn the screen green. Colin provides the data on China's engineered economic slowdown, which the PBOC is now starting to reverse. He also discusses Monday's announcement of crude oil sales from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (whose negative effect on sour crude prices has been more than offset by the shut-in of one quarter of Pemex production) and the ballooning U.S. public debt (now 125% of GDP), as another game of political chicken gets played with the debt ceiling. The US debt stats are sobering and we need to de-lever, at least that's what my CFO friends would tell me.

We hope you find this episode as informative and inspirational as we did. What's happening in Afghanistan is devastating and we're all praying it ends as well as possible. We also know these events will be affecting our future in ways we just can't anticipate yet. One thing we do know... we all need people, like Corey, who put public service first.